Create a Backyard Butterfly Garden - How to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden

Butterfly Garden 101

Attracting Butterflies to Your Garden

Butterfly gardens are a great way to spruce up any yard and make it inviting and serene. There are over 24,000 recognized butterfly species in the entire world. The butterfly is one of the most revered and beautiful insects on the planet, which is why butterfly gardens and so popular and creating butterfly gardens is a favorite pastime of many people, young and old. Creating a butterfly garden is relatively simple even if you are new to gardening in general. Attracting butterflies to your existing garden or building a butterfly garden is all about choosing the right plants and the right location.

Choose the Right Plants

The plants you choose for your garden should be plants that are attractive to butterflies. Typically the plants that butterflies are most attracted to are plants with bright, bold, vivid colors. For the best effect group brightly colored plants of different varieties together. To make sure that you are selecting the right plants for attracting butterflies you should find out what types of butterflies live in your area or region of the country. Once you know which species live in your area you can find out which plants they prefer. Keep in mind that butterflies like plants that allow them to easily access the nectar with their probesces. If all else fails, and you are still unsure of which plants to incorporate into your garden try some of these tried and true butterfly attracting plants: marigolds, milkweeds, lilac, thistle, and tickseed sunflower.

Pick the Right Place

One of the most important factors to consider when trying to create a beautiful butterfly garden is location, location, location. Most butterflies like to hang out in warm, sunny areas where they are also shielded from any on coming gusts of wind. To create the optimal environment for butterflies in your garden line the perimeter of your garden with hedges or lattice covered in vines. This makes it more likely that visiting butterflies will linger long enough to lay eggs. While you’re at it plant flowers that are also beneficial for caterpillars and larva such as Queen Anne’s Lace, millweed, parsley & thistle.

Other Tips

Besides plant and sun, butterflies can be lured by things such as rotting fruit, particularly peaches and plums.

Sugar water and mud puddles are also a favorite of various butterfly species. Create shallow puddles of sugar water or mud puddles for butterflies to sip.

Avoid the use of broad spectrum pesticides. Instead opt for green alternatives to pesticides to ward of pests and disease. If you run into a problem with pests and disease incorporate some “natural enemies” which is another name for insects and natural remedies that will counter act against situations such as these.

Conclusion

The key to creating a butterfly garden is creating an inviting environment that butterflies can thrive in. Selecting the right plants for your geographical region, and the type of butterfly that are you are trying to attract is key. A good appealing location filled with all of the things that butterflies need to survive is also important when creating a butterfly garden.

If you follow these tips your garden should be teaming with butterflies in no time.